I wrote this back in July:
...Obama and his cadres, whose primary interaction with Hispanics is with lobbyists for ethnic identity groups, fail to see the concern within the Hispanic communities over illegal immigration.
I work with many Hispanics, we talk about it all the time. Illegals flock to their communities so as to blend in; parents fear for their children as the two-bedroom apartment next door becomes host to a dozen illegals or more - are they hard workers or career criminals? Nobody knows, and with a president advocating a "don't ask, don't tell" policy towards illegals, it is the American Hispanic population that is becoming scared, victimized, and terrorized, while being politically patronized.
Was I right, and are many Hispanics turned off by the "open borders" crowd in the Democratic party? Consider the following out of Florida:
In the U.S. Senate race, Hispanic voters favored Cuban-American Republican Marco Rubio by 55 percent, while supporting Gov. Charlie Crist by 23 percent and Democrat Kendrick Meek by 21 percent. Republican Rick Scott won 50 percent of the Hispanic vote, two points ahead of Democrat Alex Sink in one of the closest governor's races in Florida history.
Maybe this is why?
Analysts agree that most voters do not choose candidates based solely on their immigration position. In exit polls this year, only 8 percent of voters nationwide said immigration was their top issue. Latino voters placed immigration well behind the economy and jobs...
The Weekly Standard has more:
New Mexico governor-elect Susana Martinez may present the most compelling example. As Luisita Lopez Torregrosa writes for Politics Daily, Martinez was expected to get 30 percent of the Hispanic vote in her state, which would have been an elevated total for a Republican there. Instead, she over-performed and earned 38 percent of the Hispanic vote against her Democratic opponent. Martinez is emblematic of the Tea Party movement in that she is a fiscal conservative who is also pro-life and unabashedly opposed to same-sex marriage.
So, too, is Marco Rubio of Florida, a fresh face whose meteoric rise on the national scene came against considerable odds
More troubling for Democrats still: In Texas’s 27th Congressional District (which includes Corpus Christi and Brownsville), 28-year incumbent Democrat Solomon Ortiz looks to be losing the recount against Republican challenger Blake Farenthold, in a heavily Hispanic district no less...
...In her two previous Senate campaigns, in 1998 and 2004, Boxer carried 72 percent and 73 percent of the state’s Hispanic voters, respectively. Against Carly Fiorina, her margin of victory among Hispanic voters was cut by a quarter – clearly not enough to turn the tide, but more than just foam on the water.
And yet Obama - to this very moment, as he fights alongside Harry Reid to push the DREAM Act - still believes that what Hispanics really want is the nation to be flooded with people who look like them and sound like them, even if their value system is 180 degrees opposite that of the hardworking Hispanic-American community.
Hispanics are by nature conservative - hard working, family-oriented, church-going, and charitable. They want to get ahead and live the American dream, not be ghettoized in a slum surrounded by people who cut the line to get to this country, only to sponge off the hard-working folks that earned their citizenship the honest way.
Republicans should continue their "Hispanic outreach", and make an honest case for why conservative values fit their needs best, and why they should not be fooled by the amnesty-granters on the Left who are simply looking for more people to force onto the federal dole. Hispanics are natural allies of conservatives; we just need more folks out there like Marco Rubio willing to stand up to the accusations of racism and explain why our philosophy fits the Hispanic creed the best.
But are there enough Republicans with the courage to speak and stand up to the inevitable onslaught of accusatory rhetoric from the mainstream media, the Democratic party, and the rest of the "professional" Left? Ah, there's the rub...
1 comment:
Nationally, I believe Hispanics went Democratic 64-36%, or something similar. Less strong than black or Jewish support for Dems, but almost 2-1 in their favor. Still, as you say, this portion of the electorate is in play.
I think you are correct, it is all about changing the narrative - it's not "amnesty for illegals" that Hispanics want, it's the same thing every other American wants - the opportunity to get a good job, and to raise the living standards of themselves and their families. Republicans need to get out there and make these arguments to the Hispanic community, as well as on TV, if only to get the message "out there".
If Republicans cannot even stick up for their own narrative, their own storyline (which, unlike the Democrats, is actually backed in facts), then what hope is there that they can carry out any other portions of the conservative agenda?
The Republicans too have to learn lessons from the 2010 midterms. Let's see if they do.
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